Introduction
Museums have been around for generations and as time has progressed, best practices and methodologies have adapted to adhere to contemporary trends. When answering the question of how to make museums more indispensable for tomorrow’s generation, we must be open to incorporate technological advances. As the world continues to move online, museums must be sure not stay behind. This paper will discuss the concept of digitization and the role it plays in museums in regard to collections management and preservation, education and engagement, and accessibility and inclusion. The final analysis will summarize the manner in which digitization contributes to keeping museums relevant to current and future audiences.
What is Digitization?
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Digitization is defined as the process of converting the content of physical media to a digital format (Feigel, 2015, p. 2). In the museum setting, digitization is a method of cataloging, preserving, and exhibiting, while simultaneously providing accessibility to an online audience. Digitization has a place in various museum areas, such as collections management, education, preservation, and accessibility.
While the digital era emerged in the 1980’s, the practice of digitization has been around since the late 1990’s. Four North American institutions – The Smithsonian Institution, The Library Company of Philadelphia, Digital Public Library of America, & The Library of Congress – elected to develop their mission around the accessibility of their collections to all, by any means possible (Feigel, 2015, p. 5). As digital technology becomes more ubiquitous, museums need to incorporate the trend of digitization in order to sustain the interest of their
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15). From the digitized data, conservators can study what elements may be contributing to decay, outside of time itself, and work towards finding a solution, or a way to dramatically reduce the rate at which that artifact deteriorates. Digitization offers one of the most inclusive records of an object in place of the object itself, and once an object has been digitized, digital repairs can be made to re-create damaged or missing sections (Hollinger et al., 2013, p. 205). This allows for the object to be appreciated in full and give a more holistic view of what the object would have looked like in its original
In Stephen Weil’s essay, he argues “the museum’s role has transformed from one of mastery to one of service” (Weil, 196). According to him, museums have changed their mission from one that cultures the public to one that serves
...g digital museums already exists, because it would allow more people to discover works of art that are much in demand, without having to queue and be surrounded by people. The progresses in digital imagery are going to get even more faultless, but one should remember that it remains a copy, and that nothing is worth being transported by the emotion and the magic of contemplating the work of art itself.
“Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship.” in Exhibiting Cultures. Eds. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Print.
The metropolitan museum is the largest art museum in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. Upon going to the museum I found myself wondering how I can choose three artifacts out of nearly a million different relics. After spending countless hours roaming the three story museum and looking at the vast amount of artifacts I found myself overwhelmed with inspiration to write this analysis. The only dilemma was how one can narrow down the selection to three relics out of hundreds of thousands. After sometime I picked the three relics that I found interesting, spiritual, and showed a significance in modern and ancient history. The three relicts I will discuss in this essay are the following; Family Tree, Emperor’s Twelve-Symbol Robe, and lastly Mans Shirt, these three artifacts show in my opinion how god, the spirit and the universe all reflect upon the individual wearing the clothing/stories painted upon the person.
Today we have the Smithsonian Institution that represents the trauma that many of the people today do not have imprinted in their memory. This is a way for all people, who were both present and not present, to pay their respects to the participants and the victims in World War II.5 In creating the Smithsonian, the Americans initially wanted to reflect deeply upon the occurrences by design...
New museology is the modernisation of museums. New museums are made to be more interactive and more interesting for the visitors. Displays in the museums are no longer covered in glass and people are encouraged to look more closely and interact with displays. The museums are brighter are the displays...
A curator needs to be able to negotiate and be willing to compromise, as it is often the task at hand to borrow from museums or other locations. Teamwork and flexibility are also valued, as the job isn’t completely independent. Museums are designed for public enjoyment, so good communication a...
A library or information unit must have a dedicated plan on having an organized Collection Development Policy, represents the guideposts of all types of library institutions. Collection development is the process of planning, selecting, acquiring and evaluating the library collections’ convenience to print and electronic collection developments. Thus, it is essential to have a written collection development policy, a statement of general collection building principles with desalinating the purpose and content of a collection in terms of relevance and internal audiences (Clayton and Gorman 2007). Broadly, the international and local libraries have sketched written collection development policies which they are aware of its uses. Recently, the written policies consistently renewed with the rise of digital collections. However, the value of the written collection development plan shakes with the complexity of managing electronic resources, funding and time considerations, criticism on how it written and also its inflexibility. This essay will examine the arguments for having the advantages of the written collection development policy (CDP) and the issues evolve which against the latter.
In the world of preservation and library science the common focus is on preserving content, ensuring its longevity, findability, and a stable consistent metadata and technology solution, However we live in an age where everyone is a publisher of some form, and more consistently the content they produce will be in a digital rather than analogue form. Within that content there will always be varying amounts of metadata, some will be populated with an immense detail and granularity, some content will have been created with no human intervention to add additional information to it. In fact much of the digital material produced will have been done so by people who have no concept of metadata, and no inclination to know about it or time to use it. The question raised by Smiths statement highlights many of the issues around data preservation and digital content, with metadata only being a part of those issues, but integral to the ongoing management of the massive influx of digital content being produced.
Sillito, D. (2011). Free museums: Visits more than double. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15979878. Last accessed 4th Nov 2013.
Digital art has a fifty-year history of innovation and experimentation with new technology. The Pioneers of digital art were not artists but people who were exploring new visions through computers and the writing of computer programs. According to the Digital Art Museum, which is a joint venture between London Guildhall University and two independent art galleries, digital art can currently be classified according to three phases Phase I of digital art was from 1956-1986. The Paintbox Era, the second phase, lasted from 1986-1996. Art software became readily available and attracted more artists to the new media. Especially useful was the paint program and devices such as the scanner and film recorder. Phase III, 1996-2006, is called the Multimedia Era because of the increase in technology and Internet access allowing the digital media artist interactivity with many art forms. The widespread availability of computers and software has allowed the digital artist to create distinctive works of art. Digital art is able to combine and transform more traditional types of art such as painting, sculpture, photography, animation and filmmaking. Digital technology allows the artist to create and manipulate color, images, and texture, instantly. Images can be made to appear, disappear and even combine or morph.
... to the Library and that have generally been underused resources. B. Greater use of the Library's Capitol Hill facilities by scholars for the kind of interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, multimedia, multilingual, and synthetic writing that is important to Congressional deliberation and national policy-making, but inadequately encouraged both by special interest groups and by advocacy-oriented think tanks; and C. Greater use by the general public through programs that stimulate interest, increase knowledge, and encourage more citizens to use the collections on-site and electronically.”The Library employees will add their position as information guides by “helping more people find appropriate materials in a swelling sea of unsorted information” and directing them to services and resources exclusive to the Library of Congress. This requires not only more growth of employees that the Library has formerly had, but also making it easier in new ways more wide-ranging and “systematic use by researchers of the distinctive materials that only the Library of Congress has.” Courses for the common public, such as displays or publications, must display the importance and value of the collections.
Museum defines as an institution housing collections of objects of artistic, historic, or scientific interest conserved and displayed for the educational and enjoyment of the public. Museums are places of memory that provides the link of distant past to the present generation which also help the society to know the path their forebears trod. The main purpose of museum is neither to educate nor entertain but rather creates a memory bank would remind us of the past. No wonder most societies in different parts of the world traced their origin through the works of arts history. There are many types of museum includes museum of Antiquities-in which are housed ancient pieces of furniture or objects of art such as sculptures, paintings, ceramics, textiles and other crafts. Public record office museum serving as collection centre for famous documents, War museum containing relics of national wars, Maritime museum for maritime history, museum for architecture, with types, structures and styles of building, etc., Museum for Local/Indigenous Technologies, Science Museum, with objects depicting history of science and engineering and Natural History Museum. However, all types of these have their own roles of information institutions in national development. The main roles are to identify, acquire, preserve, and exhibit unique, collectible, or representative objects. The role of museum in the life of a nation involves conducting research into the vast natural history heritage and biodiversity of the country, serving as a repository, of natural objects, source materials and taxonomists in that country, creating scientific awareness, on natural history resources of the nation through annotated exhibitions for public enlightenment in display ga...
One of my favorite things to do when traveling in a new city is to visit the museums. I
A museum is “a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.” (dictionary.com). This is the literal definition of a museum as well as my view of them coming into my first semester of college. I believed they were boring, outdated places where historical items were displayed. As I moved through the semester, my professor helped me gain a new perspective of these remarkable museums; one of respect and astonishment. Museums are meant to aid in learning and safeguarding of things that should never be forgotten. Of the many great places I visited this semester that adjusted my feelings towards museums, the ones that had the greatest impact were The National Museum of Natural History, The Newseum, The National Gallery of Art, and The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These places are there to remind the general public about things that should never be forgotten; they preserve the history and beauty of the world.